Guayabo Pastuso and I have been traveling quite a bit recently. We went back to the region where BP are extracting oil to investigate an NGO that the oil companies set up to train rural community members in a more ‘entrepreneurial’ approach to farming, amongst other things. This was a wee bit nerve wracking and I had to go in disguise so that I wasn’t recognised from previous trips as I was trying to be an academic without links to social movements. The oil companies have put tiny amounts of money into this rather dubious NGO in comparison with the huge amounts of funding given to the army - who killed yet another farmer in the region a few days ago. This isn’t the only part of the country where the army is killing populations who don’t fit into a development model geared towards resource extraction by multinational corporations. Last week we traveled to north-east Colombia to hear evidence that social organizations had collected into murders by the army in the region of Catatumbo. read full story / add a comment